"The damage was done the moment our eyes collided."
~Xavier De Luca
***
One life-altering night ignites a soul-scorching passion between a gangster and a good girl...One that could burn everyone they know and love to ashes.
Loyalties and legacies...
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It's a truth universally acknowledged that beauty is pain, which is probably why it felt like my designer stilettos were trying to slowly murder me. Or more specifically, rub my poor, beleaguered heel to a bloody pulp.
I just couldn't believe something I loved so dearly could treat my feet so heinously.
As I quietly languished, my fingers tickled the ivory keys of the restaurant's grand piano while I watched my employer's well-heeled guests milling about the private party.
If my Louboutins were killing me softly, then Evelina De Luca's fancy friends must have been in utter anguish. I swear Giorgio Baldi's dining room looked like a Vogue Italia photoshoot come to life!
Though no one in the small crowd appeared to be a celebrity, they certainly dressed and looked like the A-list actors and Hollywood bigwigs living in the Malibu hills behind us. I spotted Halston, Givenchy, Herve Leger, Badgley Mischka, and many other couture brands I could barely pronounce. Rolex watches that cost more than my brother's car and bulbous diamonds icy enough to sink the Titanic flashed from every direction.
Besides, shameless rubbernecking was the only way to distract from the ungodly pain radiating up my calf. Every press of the pedals was agony.
I had ten more minutes before my next break. That knowledge kept me going as my shoe started filling with liquid (likely my blood). Soon, I'd be able to escape to the restaurant's kitchen where I'd stashed my purse, which had a baggie full of bandages and my trusty nude ballerina flats.
Whenever the throb got close to unbearable, I'd close my eyes and curl into the pain, hovering over the piano's keys as if carried away by the classical music flowing through my body like a current.
It t was easy for me to get swept up in the emotive stanzas of Albinoni's, Adagio in G Minor. I'm a total sucker for the somber chaconne of the ethereal Baroque melody.
Not to mention, Mrs. De Luca asked for this piece by name, and she was paying twice my usual rate, so there was an added incentive to deliver perfection.
Worst of all, my suffering was self-inflicted.
I was so excited to finally have a reason to wear Gannon's frivolous (but incredibly fabulous) graduation gift, that I forgot the golden rule of footwear. You never break in a new pair of shoes when you know you're going to be on your feet for hours!
Total. Rookie. Mistake.
Gannon even warned me in the car on the way to the restaurant. Of course, as his 'younger' twin sister, it was my duty to disregard his advice, but, oh boy, was I paying for it.
I hated it when Gannon was right because he never missed an opportunity to get Cillian to gloat alongside him. They loved pointing out that being older meant they were always right.
"Excuse me?" A stimulating baritone washed over me as I blinked up into a pair of hazardously beautiful eyes.
The chromatic slate of the young man's powerful gaze riveted me to the bench as my thoughts scattered like dropped mercury. Whoever he was, he emanated a quiet dominance that commanded attention.
